'Last Resort' co-creator Shawn Ryan on the series finale, 'Beverly Hills Cop' and more

"Last Resort" just aired its series finale, and I have a few thoughts on how things ended, and then a long interview with co-creator Shawn Ryan about these 13 episodes — and, at the end, about his "Beverly Hills Cop" pilot for CBS — all coming up just as soon as I ask who Jay-Z is...

As Ryan explains below, parts of "Controlled Flight Into Terrain" were largely as they were intended to be back when this was just going to be episode 13 out of a hypothetical 22, but large chunks of it were rewritten once ABC told them this would be the end. And it's pretty easy to tell which is which, not just because of the finality of some of those events — Marcus sacrificing himself to ensure the Colorado didn't fall into Chinese hands, Kylie assassinating the president (after the most incompetent Secret Service agents of all time took her dad's orders not to frisk her), Hopper ransoming Christine from Wes (with Kylie somehow figuring out where Christine was) — but because of how incredibly rushed they were. For all that we ask for canceled shows to get an opportunity at closure, it's not always easy to pull off in abbreviated circumstances, especially on a show with so many characters in so many different places.

And yet the section where Marcus, Sam, Grace and the COB fought back against the mutineers — which was largely what was supposed to happen, other than Marcus dying and the sub blowing up — was excellent, and was a reminder of why I was so intrigued by this show in the first place. And of the last-minute changes, Marcus's sacrifice unsurprisingly worked the best, because... well... Andre Braugher.

So here's Shawn Ryan, talking about where the series might have gone if the ratings had been a bit better, what regrets he has, and the most important factor that could make "Beverly Hills Cop" the show that breaks his recent cancellations lump:

I wanted to start out by asking how much of what was in the finale was going to be in there before you found out there wouldn't be a back-nine and this would be it for the show.

Shawn Ryan: I've been thinking a lot about the idea of this is a series that got interrupted, versus ultimately a miniseries, and how important are the intentions when you begin, in terms of what the final product is. In the movie world, "American Beauty" started off as a movie about two kids on trial for the murder of Kevin Spacey's character, and then it shifted. And yet movies aren't under the burden of what they started out, but what they end up as. I'm happy to talk to you about what was intended, but at the end of the day, I hope it's judged as a 13-episode miniseries. I know it won't be, because it's been deemed a series since May.

But to answer your question, the episode was always about the mutineers attempting to take over the sub, it was always about Marcus and Sam really being at odds, and in fighting against the mutiny, coming back together. The stuff that got rewritten once we found out it would be the final episode: we rescued Christine and returned her to the States, we accelerated and really minimized a story that was going to play bigger in subsequent episodes with James and Tani and these prospectors that were on the island and starting to mistreat people from Tani's tribe. That was going to play out as a much bigger thing. If there are some rough scenes in the final episode, I would say that story was. We didn't feel we could totally ignore James and Tani in the last episode. But that wasn't a thing we were playing in the original scripts. And then the culmination of the story is pretty much all new. In the original version that we wrote, it was going to be the end of Josh Brannan, he was going to die in the gunfight on the sub, that was going to be our big emotional loss before Sam and Marcus retook the sub. All the act four stuff is new, and the culmination, the ending, is new.

So before this turned into a series finale, Marcus and Sam were going to reconcile and retake control of the sub. Where was the story going to go from there? How much did you talk about the back-nine that never came?

Shawn Ryan: We talked a lot about the back-nine. We pitched it to the network back in September or October. That pitch was very well-received. We were about to dissolve the American blockade. In many ways, a lot of the first 13 episodes were about survival, and we were going to transfer in the last 9 to, "If survival isn't the main issue, if we're being left alone, what is this place?" we were going to do the opposite, where all of a sudden, things are open on the island, and they've become icons for a certain segment of the world's population. All of a sudden, these boats arrive with people who want to be part of this movement. And what do you do about those people? Can those people be trusted? Is there an assassin among those people? One of those people was going to be Marcus's surviving son, who had always disagreed with him politically, but who now looked upon Marcus's actions as something admirable, even though Marcus thinks that his son was misconstruing that. There was going to be a woman with his son who would be a foil for Marcus, philosophically and romantically. We were going to do a much bigger story about how Christine gets saved. We were going to deal with the island and the fact that there were valuable minerals on it that needed to be saved, things like that. We had definite plans on where we were going to go.

One of the things you had to race through in the final act was Kylie shooting the president. Were you aiming to set up an arc where she goes undercover in the president's cabal after the coup fails?

Shawn Ryan: We actually were going to take her on a journey where she was more conflicted, and trying to be the good daughter to her father, and in many ways would start to work against Marcus and Sam and Christine before having some qualms. We were going to muddy up that character some more, and only given the final episode, we had to do it in a much more black-and-white way.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Comments

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

I'm torn. I wanted to see the story develop and conclude, but this wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am wrap-up didn't satisfy. What I'm left with, ultimately, is the final image (and sound effect, per the caption) of the story: The show ended with a thud.

I stuck with this thing, but I really don't know why. If anyone dropped four nuclear weapons on Pakistan, I tend to think all hell would break loose. The writers either didn't get that or didn't care. Case in point, this little gem from the captain: "if you give this boat to the Chinese, you're going to start a war." Uh, I think one already started. I really didn't give a crap about who was screwing around with whom. I like the ambition, but very disappointing execution.

@Prettok: You're right, but you're missing his point. This show hasn't really been thought out from the pilot at all, and none of it really makes much sense or has much internal logic. I've stuck with it in the hopes that it might find a groove and have a point, but it seems like the show was more or less a premise that they wrote a series around. That's not a bad way to make a show necessarily, as that's essentially what Lost grew out of. But it certainly didn't work here.

Ironically, this is one of the few gimmick-premise shows since Lost started the trend that actually seemed to have a chance of working. But after watching this, it seems like the ambition of the show is just far too big for network TV. Hell, I doubt HBO could pull this off even if they sunk a Game of Thrones/Boardwalk Empire budget into it.

I was so disappointed when I heard this was being cancelled.Last Resort was the only show I've really enjoyed in probably over a year, even if there was some cheese and a bit of unrealistic approaches to situations. I was hoping they would make the final episode at least 2 hours to try to flesh things out as best they could, but as it went down everything felt extremely rushed. such wasted potential

Shawn Ryan mentioned the female viewing audience, and I am one female who loved the show. The acting was top-notch, and the storytelling was brilliant at times. While I didn't love every minute of those 13 episodes (the lashing was unbearable to watch, as was the COB's torture), I don't regret watching this riveting series. Thanks, Mr. Ryan.

He did kind of seem to be actively avoiding it. Not sure how you can talk about doing a cop show with comedic elements without bringing up Terriers. Which, while not technically a cop procedural, had a lot of those elements--with perfectly integrated comedy.

This was a great popcorn show with terrific acting, terse dialogue and some excellent suspense sequences, whether you bought the premise or not. The finale was a bit (!) rushed, but still satisfying. In the end, it was a noble piece of television entertainment.

So last night's finale was the only episode that was changed once they knew the show was cancelled? It felt like a few episodes earlier that things kicked into higher gear in preparation for a series finale.

I assumed they must have changed those others too, because the three episodes prior to this were so terse and rushed that they felt like clips packages rather than narrative storytelling. If they weren't edited and adjusted for the finale, then I'm glad the show is done because those were frankly awful TV.

While I can certainly respect Shawn Ryan's belief about the interest of the stories, we think that the series would have worked better as a miniseries. The idea of following Tani and land/mineral rights over 9 more episodes? Umm...no thanks

I've been a huge Andre Braugher fan since Homicid, and seeing another show of his fail sucks. After H:LotS ended, Braugher was wasted in one bad project after another, but he finally had a great role on a great sbow with Men of a Certain Age. Bam! Cancelled. Now he had a great role on a good show with the potential tobe a classic. Bam! Cancelled.

L.R. was not perfect, but its flaws were born of ambition and the logistics of network television, as opposed to the crap that so often flourishes. The more I see the idea of "limited run" series the more it makes sense. Some ideas are meant to be epics, others are meant to be smaller. Three hours of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is great, but most movies are bloated if they go over an hour forty-five. It would have been interesting to see this story race at full speed without the weights tied to its ankles and without the finish line popping up miles to soon.

I don't understand - what about this show did the powers to be didn't think worked for the female viewers?! What is up with that? Both my daughter and I - the mother, and others watched this show. Where are they getting their ratings and numbers? We usually do not even watch ABC, but we did for this show.Kudos to the actors, writers, and all that finished the best they could. Would have preferred having more, but you folks can walk with heads held high. Meanwhile, we will walk back over to the other networks we had come from to watch the show. Good-bye ABC...

Finale was fantastic! Ridiculous that ABC even put this show on and then sacrificed it at 8 on Thursdays. What a waste. Cast and writing was terrific and fun to watch. I almost wish they wouldn't have ended it so there would have been some opportunity for other nets to pick up. But that is always a long shot so under cricumstances it was a slam-bang ending!

While I could've seen a few more episodes, I think it's PERFECT that they ended this now. This situation was always destined to be short-lived, and making it drag on any longer would've just ended with some lame filler episodes where the series jumped the shark.

I am a woman and I loved LR. I admit I was concerned about how the premise would play out long term. That being said, it was a great show with an intriguing story line. Network TV hardly ever gives a show a chance to find its audience and pulls it too quickly. That why I prefer cable shows. They do a few episodes with a beginning, middle, and an end. Then they decide if the audience warrants renewing the show. That is much more satisfying for the viewer. Last Resort was the only show I watched on ABC. Now I'm gone, probably never to return because any good show will be killed off much too soon. Is ABC an acronym for American Broadcasting Company? I think not! It should be known as Already Been Canceled.